Thursday, September 28, 2000

Just a quick update today. If all goes well this week, I will return on Friday with that long talked about interview with Melora Walters!

More home video tidbits for your reading pleasure. The region 2 Magnolia DVD has been delayed yet again & now should be out on October 2nd (Thanks Ewan!). The domestic Magnolia DVD slipped to 13th on the DVD Sales Chart for the week ending September 10th.

Hard Eight will be screened as part of the 1st Annual Reno Film Festival which will be held October 13th - 15th. The festival will feature an opening celebration, tour of Reno film sites, buffet dinner party, champagne brunch & wrap party. Ticket prices range from $7.50 for individual movies to $130 for an all-events pass. For more information, call (775) 334-6707. The date Hard Eight will be shown is not yet known & it's not clear if there will be any involvement from PTA's camp. I will let you know as soon as I hear anything else. (Thanks Bob!)

Did anyone attend the screening of Hard Eight at Brown University this past weekend? If so, drop me a line & let me know how it went...

Sunday, September 24, 2000

Fiona Apple's Fast as You Can directed by PTA is nominated for Best Pop Video of the Year at the annual Billboard Music Video Awards. The ceremony will be held on November 10th at the Hilton in Universal City, CA.

Magnolia held at 11th place on the VHS rentals chart for the week ending September 10th. Weekly rental revenue was 1.98 million for a total of 36.8 million since its release on July 25th. Magnolia's rental revenue is 163.8% of Box Office gross, which is an outstanding number. Nothing else in the Top 20 is that high. What does it mean? That a lot more people are seeing Magnolia at home than they did at the theater. Now we just need to get these VHS folks to invest in a DVD player...

There are a few PTA related tidbits in the brand new Total Movie Magazine. What's cool about this magazine is the DVD that's included. It has trailers, featurettes, short films & more. It's worth checking out. One feature called Cinemullets, chronicles the worst haircuts on film. Here's their take on Boogie Nights:

Mullethead: Little Bill

Interestingly, Boogie Nights spanned two critical mullet eras, the '70s and the '80s. The '70s were all about, "Am I a hippie? Am I disco? Pass the coke, I think I'm Bowie." In the '80s the mullet M.O. became "Well, yeah, I'm metal, but I'm fancy metal." Full credit, then, goes to William H. Macy's Little Bill for standing out in one of the greatest ensemble mullet movies ever made. If we had hair that bad, we'd blow our brains out, too.

Side Note: The soundtrack album is a monument to mulletdom in itself, featuring such hirsute heroes as Rick Springfield, ELO, Night Ranger & Dirk Diggler.

The Set-Up: What's so great about the commentary from director Paul Thomas Anderson is that he obviously truly admires all of the actors he worked with on this film, and more than that, their performances crack him up. He also provides a surprising amount of background on everyone onscreen, including even the weird extras.

Revealed: Why Elliot Gould's picture is in the background of three separate shots; which real porno flicks influenced Boogie Nights.

Shining Moment: Anderson ponders at length how actor John C. Reilly leaves him "break-down-crying, falling-on-the-floor-thinking-I'm-going-to-throw-up laughing." About the time he admits, "I can't get enough of him. I could stare at that fucking face all day long," you're wondering if maybe our man Reilly needs to look into a restraining order.

Typical Quote: This is just like you've got this scene that you've written and you just kind of feel like you've got three great actors and a bunch of cocaine and you'd be foolish if you didn't sit them down and get a bunch of improvisational shit.

Thursday, September 21, 2000

Well, I finally managed to obtain the DVD sales chart (courtesy of VideoScan & the Hollywood Reporter) for the week ending September 3rd. Magnolia debuted in 7th place behind other new releases such as Braveheart, T2, Sound of Music, etc. Boogie Nights did not place in the top 20. But these numbers may be deceiving. VideoScan states that they account for approximately 70% of POS (Point Of Sale) units sold through to consumers, but they do not track Internet sales. This makes a big difference since a ton of DVD's are sold online. Magnolia has been doing extremely well with the online retailers such as Amazon.com, Express.com & DVD Empire. Oh well, if anyone out there knows of a truly accurate way to track DVD sales, drop me a line...

I've been receiving a large volume of emails regarding the hidden features on the Boogie Nights & Magnolia DVD's. I made a point of not highlighting these, so viewers would have a chance to find them on their own. So just in case you haven't found them yet, check your color bars...

Thanks to site reader Mark Nolte, I learned that Magnolia was released in Australia on VHS this past Tuesday, September 19th. No word as of yet, on the DVD release, but I will keep you posted. Here's the cover art for the VHS release (Click to enlarge):

Australian VHS

I'm sorry to say that my main graphics designer, Ryan Worley is stepping down. Ryan has been invaluable to the site & I really couldn't have done it without him. He is extremely busy with school/work & understandably needs to focus on that. I wish him nothing but the best! Rest assured, he will still be around, helping out with the site in some capacity. So without further adieu, I'm pleased to announce that CJ Wallis (budding filmmaker & Photoshop guru) will handle these responsibilities! CJ has been very active with the site, so he's already used to my pain in the ass "creative control" over the way things look. Bottom Line: Expect the same quality & creativity moving forward.

Sunday, September 17, 2000

I'm pleased to announce the winner of the PTA DVD Music Video Contest is Jimmy Nguyen! What did Jimmy do to deserve this prize? Jimmy submitted a 3 minute short film set to Aimee Mann's "One". Big deal, right? His entry was received on CD ROM, complete with menus, an introduction, the short (with & without commentary!), cast & crew biographies & a behind the scenes featurette! There was considerable time & effort put into this & it really shows! I hope to have this (as well as many of the other entries) on the site in the near future, so you can all check it out.

Hard Eight will be showing at Brown University next weekend as part of their Director's First Film Series. Hard Eight plays at 8:00 p.m. on Thursday, September 21st & on Sunday, September 24th. Admission is $2 for students & $2.50 for everyone else (per film). Other films showing include Bound, Clerks, I Shot Andy Warhol & Spanking the Monkey. You can check out this link for more info...(Thanks Ian!)

Magnolia was voted Best Film of the Year by FIPRESCI. PTA will receive the award at the opening ceremony of the San Sebastian International Film Festival on September 21st. I'm not sure if PTA will be there to receive the award. More info on this will follow. FIPRESCI is a worldwide organization of 150 film critics from 40 countries. For more information on the festival go here.

Thursday, September 14, 2000

Magnolia will be released on DVD in Region 2 (which includes Japan, Europe, South Africa & The Middle East) on September 18th. There will be a bare bones release with no extras & a special edition which appears to mirror the recent release in North America (including the cover art). I'll post reviews & confirm features as soon as possible. The movie only DVD & VHS release will feature the great foreign theatrical poster art

Sunday, September 10, 2000

Congratulations to Dylan Tichenor, Aimee Mann, & Paul Thomas Anderson for winning Best Editing in a Video at yesterday's MTV Video Music Awards for Save Me. It was also nominated for Best Video From a Film.

Magnolia held steady in 7th place on the VHS rental chart for the week ending August 27th. Weekly rental revenue was 3.80 million for a total of 29.5 million since its release on July 25th.

A great interview with PTA by the Toronto Star from January. Topics include frogs, the soundtrack mix & more! (Thanks to reader Andrew Chiu for sending in the interview)

Tuesday, September 05, 2000

Magnolia dropped slightly to 7th place on the VHS rental chart for the week ending August 20th. Weekly rental revenue was 4.97 million for a total of 24.2 million since its release on July 25th. Expect good things when the DVD debuts on the sales chart next week.

Magnolia will make it's debut on pay per view September 7th. I have a Direct TV satellite dish & they will be showing Magnolia letterboxed as well. Check you local cable company or satellite provider for more information.

Finally, let's close the book on the Fight Club/David Fincher controversy. I receive a lot of emails on this topic, but I think it's been blown way out of proportion. I failed to report PTA's comments on Ain't It Cool News from May (see how important it is to me...). So here they are:

Just to clarify: My comments about Fincher and Fight Club were stupid. Wishing anyone testicular cancer isn't funny and I did end up seeing the film. I had a problem with the violence and the cruelty -- I just couldn't get past it -- blah blah blah....I wrote a letter to Fincher apologizing for my comments.....he was cool about it.